To ensure that a person who has an accident or a medical emergency will be treated in a proper way, so called SOS-cards in paper form are recommended to be carried around by people. Such SOS-cards usually include information about its owner including name, address, phone number, closest relative or other contact person as well as his/her phone number(s), information about chronic illnesses, medication, medicine and other allergies, vaccinations, organ donation together with a personal signature, a photo and/or other special features of the owner for identification purposes. If a person who is injured by an accident carries such a personal SOS-card, he/she can be treated by the rescue personnel who treats him/her first in a proper way taking into account the person's allergies, chronic illnesses or the like, but only if the rescue personnel finds the SOS-card with the corresponding information prior to treating.
Therefore, it is in general possible to increase safety of people in emergency situations by such an SOS-card. However, many people do not carry around such a paper SOS-card. Further, it is often difficult for first-aid attendants to find such a paper SOS-card even if the person to be treated carries such card since there are a lot of possible places to deposit such small and flat card in the pockets of the cloth.
Electronic personal devices, like handheld computers, smart cards and in particular mobile phones become more and more popular to be carried around by people. Further, the use of smart cards as keys or identification means for entering certain premises are spread out widely.
Thus, it seems to be possible to integrate an SOS-card function into a personal electronic device, in particular into a mobile phone that is almost always carried around by its owner.
However, access to information stored in the mobile phone is only possible when the mobile phone Is switched on. Therefore, if the mobile phone is switched off by the owner, e.g. to safe energy, SOS-card data stored therein is not available for third people because an authorization code, e.g. a personal identification number (PIN), has to be entered to complete switching on and to get full access to all operating modes.
However, it is already known that a mobile phone can be used without entering a PIN code for emergency calls either by dialing an emergency number or by pushing a specific emergency call button.
Furthermore, a known handheld computer (e.g. Palm V™-Organizer of 3Com Corporation) includes a telephone book function for storing information as data sets having a kind of business card format. One of these data sets, for example a data set including all business card information of the owner of the handheld computer can be selected by a specific menu item to be transmitted to another handheld computer via an IR interface. Even in case that the handheld computer is switched off, actuating a specific button causes the computer to transmit this selected specific data set.
However, in case that the handheld computer is switched off using a locking function for safety and data protection purposes it is not possible to switch on the computer or to retrieve any data therefrom without entering an authorization code like a password.